Nitish Kumar resigns as Bihar Chief Minister

It's not possible to work in this environment, I tried to find solution, says Nitish Kumar, after resigning as Bihar CM

"I have done the work to the best of my ability. It's not possible to work in this environment, I tried to find out a solution. When I supported demonetisation and actions against benami property, how could I support benami property allegations against Tejashwi? I asked him to explain if there was a conspiracy to frame him. Since he and Lalu didn't explain anything, I had no option but to step down," stated Nitish Kumar, addressing the media, announcing his resignation.

Nitish Kumar stated that he has informed Lalu Prasad Yadav, the Congress Party of his decision. The Governor has accepted my resignation and asked me to continue working till the next development, Nitish added.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Nitish Kumar for his decision, minutes after he decided to step down as the Chief Minister of Bihar.

The sudden development throws the politics of Bihar into chaos with no party having a majority in the 243-member Assembly. Kumar's JD(U) has 71 seats, while RJD headed by Tejashwi Yadav's father Lalu Prasad, has 80. The BJP has 53. Political analysts indicate that a BJP-JD(U) alliance is not ruled out, given the circumstances.

Ahead of his address to the media, Nitish Kumar met with Bihar Governor KN Tripathi and handed over his resignation.This comes hours after Lalu Prasad Yadav addressed a press conference confirming that his son Tejashwi Yadav will not step down as the Deputy Chief Minister.

In a press conference, the RJD supremo made his stand clear and said that there were no issues in the grand alliance. Regarding Tejashwi's resignation, he has left the ball in Nitish Kumar's court.

"We have formed the grand alliance, made Nitish CM. Why will we break the alliance?" Yadav said. "Nitish Kumar is leader of grand alliance. We will not tolerate any disrespect towards him," he added.

"I have known Nitish for 40 years, he is no saint," shot back senior RJD leader Shivanand Tiwari on Wednesday, proving that all is not well in the grand alliance.

"With folded hands, we requested Nitish Kumar to have a dialogue with us. But he did not listen to us. We said repeatedly said that you can't run a coalition without dialogue," accused Shivanand Tiwari according to media reports.

Nitish Kumar is very particular about the fact that his image is that of someone who doesn't stand corruption. He even spoke about holding a "zero-tolerance policy" on money laundering and other corruption charges.

Lalu Prasad Yadav, backed by Opposition leaders has constantly stated that these graft charges and raids by the CBI are an effect of the political vendetta by the Narendra Modi government.

Nitish Kumar, who had won the elections by sloganeering about his ‘clean image’, and was in two minds after the raids. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) raided multiple premises of former railway minister Lalu Yadav and his family members in connection with a fresh case of alleged irregularities in awarding a tender for maintenance of hotels.

The case was registered against the then railway minister, his wife Rabri Devi, Bihar Deputy Chief Minister and his son Tejashwi, the then IRCTC MD, P K Goyal, the wife of Yadav's confidante Prem Chand Gupta, Sarla Gupta and others, CBI sources said.

"Nitishji has perhaps never faced such an embarrassing situation in his entire political career when his integrity and clean image is being questioned," JD(U) secretary general K C Tyagi told The Times Of India as suspense mounted in Patna about the options Nitish can use to head off the threat to his image.